Monday, October 10, 2011

This is Attorney General Field Marshal Eric Holder, assigned by Dear Leader Barack Obama to defend the DOJ kessel of the Gunwalker Plot Cover-up to the last man.

Below is the letter that notifies Holder that his defenses have been overrun. From Becca Watkins at the Issa Committee I just received this transcript of a letter by Congressman Issa responding to Holder's whiny jeremiad of last Friday.

The language in this letter, for DC, is "unprecedented," according to one DC source I just read it to over the phone. It announces that the battle for Holder Ridge is over, no matter what desperate forced optimism the White House may yet cling to.

Another source, one with whom I made a $50 bet that Holder would be out of office by Christmas, now admits that he may not last until Thanksgiving. "Feldmarschall Holder ist kaput!" he laughed. He is not disconsolate about the prospect of losing the fifty bucks.

The press release from Becca Watkins --

Issa to Holder: “You Own Fast and Furious”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa today sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder responding to his letter of October 7. The text of Chairman Issa’s letter to Attorney General Holder is below:

Dear Attorney General Holder:

From the beginning of the congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, the Department of Justice has offered a roving set of ever-changing explanations to justify its involvement in this reckless and deadly program. These defenses have been aimed at undermining the investigation. From the start, the Department insisted that no wrongdoing had occurred and asked Senator Grassley and me to defer our oversight responsibilities over its concerns about our purported interference with its ongoing criminal investigations. Additionally, the Department steadfastly insisted that gunwalking did not occur.

Once documentary and testimonial evidence strongly contradicted these claims, the Department attempted to limit the fallout from Fast and Furious to the Phoenix Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). When that effort also proved unsuccessful, the Department next argued that Fast and Furious resided only within ATF itself, before eventually also assigning blame to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona. All of these efforts were designed to circle the wagons around DOJ and its political appointees.

To that end, just last month, you claimed that Fast and Furious did not reach the upper levels of the Justice Department. Documents discovered through the course of the investigation, however, have proved each and every one of these claims advanced by the Department to be untrue. It appears your latest defense has reached a new low. Incredibly, in your letter from Friday you now claim that you were unaware of Fast and Furious because your staff failed to inform you of information contained in memos that were specifically addressed to you. At best, this indicates negligence and incompetence in your duties as Attorney General. At worst, it places your credibility into serious doubt.

Following the Committee’s issuance of a subpoena over six months ago, I strongly believed that the Department would fully cooperate with Congress and support this investigation with all the means at its disposal. The American people deserve no less. Unfortunately, the Department’s cooperation to date has been minimal. Hundreds of pages of documents that have been produced to my Committee are duplicative, and hundreds more contain substantial redactions, rendering them virtually worthless. The Department has actively engaged in retaliation against multiple whistleblowers, and has, on numerous occasions, attempted to disseminate false and misleading information to the press in an attempt to discredit this investigation.

Your letter dated October 7 is deeply disappointing. Instead of pledging all necessary resources to assist the congressional investigation in discovering the truth behind the fundamentally flawed Operation Fast and Furious, your letter instead did little but obfuscate, shift blame, berate, and attempt to change the topic away from the Department’s responsibility in the creation, implementation, and authorization of this reckless program. You claim that, after months of silence, you “must now address these issues” over Fast and Furious because of the harmful discourse of the past few days. Yet, the only major development of these past few days has been the release of multiple documents showing that you and your senior staff had been briefed, on numerous occasions, about Fast and Furious.

The Mexican Cartels

A month after you became Attorney General, you spoke of the danger of the Mexican drug cartels, and the Sinaloa cartel in particular. The cartels, you said, “are lucrative, they are violent, and they are operated with stunning planning and precision.” You promised that under your leadership “these cartels will be destroyed.” You vowed that the Department of Justice would “continue to work with [its] counterparts in Mexico, through information sharing, training and mutual cooperation to jointly fight these cartels, both in Mexico and the United States.”

Under your leadership, however, Operation Fast and Furious has proven these promises hollow. According to one agent, Operation Fast and Furious “armed the cartel. It is disgusting.” Fast and Furious simply served as a convenient means for dangerous cartels to acquire upwards of 2,000 assault-style weapons. On top of that, the Government of Mexico was not informed about Fast and Furious. In fact, DOJ and ATF officials actively engaged in hiding information about Fast and Furious from not only Mexican officials, but also U.S. law enforcement officials operating in Mexico for fear that they would inform their Mexican counterparts. This strategy is inapposite and contradicts the promises you made to the American people.

Your September 7, 2011 Statement

On September 7, 2011, you said that “[t]he notion that [Fast and Furious] reaches into the upper levels of the Justice Department is something that at this point I don't think is supported by the facts and I think once we examine it and once the facts are revealed we'll see that's not the case.” Unfortunately, the facts directly contradict this statement.

Lanny Breuer, the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, clearly a member of the Department’s senior leadership, knew about Fast and Furious as early as March 2010. In fact, I have learned that the amount of detail shared with Breuer’s top deputies about Fast and Furious is simply astounding.

For example, Manuel Celis-Acosta was the “biggest fish” of the straw purchasing ring in Phoenix. From the time the investigation started in September 2009 until March 15, 2010, Manuel Celis-Acosta acquired at least 852 firearms valued at around $500,000 through straw purchasers. Yet in 2009, Celis-Acosta reported an Arizona taxable income of only $15,475. Between September 2009 and late January 2010, 139 of these firearms were recovered, 81 in Mexico alone. Some of these firearms were recovered less than 24 hours after they were bought.

This information, and hundreds of pages worth of additional information, was included in highly detailed wiretap applications sent for authorization to Breuer’s top deputies. It is my understanding, the Department applied to the United States District Court for the District of Arizona for numerous wire taps from March 2010 to July 2010. These wire tap applications were reviewed and approved by several Deputy Assistant Attorney Generals, including Kenneth A. Blanco, John C. Keeney, and Jason M. Weinstein. Breuer’s top deputies approved these wiretap applications to be used against individuals associated with the known drug cartels. As I understand it, the wire tap applications contain rich detail of the reckless operational tactics being employed by your agents in Phoenix. Although Breuer and his top deputies were informed of the operational details and tactics of Fast and Furious, they did nothing to stop the program. In fact, on a trip to Mexico Breuer trumpeted Fast and Furious as a promising investigation.

Gary Grindler, the then-Deputy Attorney General and currently your Chief of Staff, received an extremely detailed briefing on Operation Fast and Furious on March 12, 2010. In this briefing, Grindler learned such minutiae as the number of times that Uriel Patino, a straw purchaser on food stamps who ultimately acquired 720 firearms, went in to a cooperating gun store and the amount of guns that he had bought. When former Acting ATF Director Ken Melson, a career federal prosecutor, learned similar information, he became sick to his stomach:

I had pulled out all Patino's -- and ROIs is, I'm sorry, report of investigation -- and you know, my stomach being in knots reading the number of times he went in and the amount of guns that he bought. Transcribed interview of Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson at 42.

At the time of his briefing in March of last year, Grindler knew that Patino had purchased 313 weapons and paid for all of them in cash. Unlike Melson, Grindler clearly saw nothing wrong with this. If Grindler had had the sense to shut this investigation down right then, he could have prevented the purchase of an additional 407 weapons by Patino alone. Instead, Grindler did nothing to stop the program.

Following this briefing, it is clear that Grindler did one of two things. Either, he alerted you to the name and operational details of Fast and Furious, in which case your May 3, 2011 testimony in front of Congress was false; or, he failed to inform you of the name and the operational details of Fast and Furious, in which case Grindler engaged in gross dereliction of his duties as Acting Deputy Attorney General. It is fair to infer from the fact that Grindler remains as your Chief of Staff that he did not engage in gross dereliction of his duties and told you about the program as far back as March of 2010.

In the summer of 2010, at the latest, you were undoubtedly informed about Fast and Furious. On at least five occasions you were told of the connection between Fast and Furious and a specific Mexican cartel – the very cartel that you had vowed to destroy. You were informed that Manuel Celis-Acosta and his straw purchasers were responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels. Yet, you did nothing to stop this program.

You failed to own up to your responsibility to safeguard the American public by hiding behind “[a]ttorneys in [your] office and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General,” who you now claim did not bring this information to your attention. Holder Letter, supra note 1. As a result of your failure to act on these memos sent to you, nearly 500 additional firearms were purchased under Fast and Furious.

The facts simply do not support any claim that Fast and Furious did not reach the highest levels of the Justice Department. Actually, Fast and Furious did reach the ultimate authority in the Department – you.

Your May 3, 2011 Statement

On May 3, 2011, I asked you directly when you first knew about the operation known as Fast and Furious. You responded directly, and to the point, that you weren’t “sure of the exact date, but [you] probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” This statement, made before Congress, has proven to be patently untrue. Documents released by the Department just last week showed that you received at least seven memos about Fast and Furious starting as early as July 2010.

In your letter Friday, you blamed your staff for failing to inform you about Operation Fast and Furious when they reviewed the memos sent to you last summer. Your staff, therefore, was certainly aware of Fast and Furious over a year ago. Lanny Breuer was aware of Fast and Furious as early as March 2010, and Gary Grindler was also aware of Fast and Furious as early as March 2010. Given this frequency of high level involvement with Fast and Furious as much as a year prior to your May 3, 2011 testimony, it simply is not believable that you were not briefed on Fast and Furious until a few weeks before your testimony. At the very least, you should have known about Fast and Furious well before then. The current paper trail, which will only grow more robust as additional documents are discovered, creates the strong perception that your statement in front of Congress was less than truthful.

The February 4, 2011 Letter

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this intransigence is that the Department of Justice has been lying to Congress ever since the inquiry into Fast and Furious began. On February 4, 2011, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote that “ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transport into Mexico.” This letter, vetted by both the senior ranks of ATF as well as the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, is a flat-out lie.

As we understand it, in March 2010, top deputies to Lanny Breuer were informed that law enforcement officers intercepted calls that demonstrated that Manuel Celis-Acosta was conspiring to purchase and transport firearms for the purpose of trafficking the firearms from the United States into Mexico. Not only was ATF aware of this information, but so was the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This information was shared with the Criminal Division. All of these organizations are components of the Department of Justice, and they were all aware of the illegal purchase of firearms and their eventual transportation into Mexico.

These firearms were not interdicted. They were not stopped. Your agents allowed these firearms purchases to continue, sometimes even monitoring them in person, and within days some of these weapons were being recovered in Mexico. Despite widespread knowledge within its senior ranks that this practice was occurring, when asked on numerous occasions about the veracity of this letter, the Department has shockingly continued to stand by its false statement of February 4, 2011.

Mr. Attorney General, you have made numerous statements about Fast and Furious that have eventually been proven to be untrue. Your lack of trustworthiness while speaking about Fast and Furious has called into question your overall credibility as Attorney General. The time for deflecting blame and obstructing our investigation is over. The time has come for you to come clean to the American public about what you knew about Fast and Furious, when you knew it, and who is going to be held accountable for failing to shut down a program that has already had deadly consequences, and will likely cause more casualties for years to come.

Operation Fast and Furious was the Department’s most significant gun trafficking case. It related to two of your major initiatives – destroying the Mexican cartels and reducing gun violence on both sides of the border. On your watch, it went spectacularly wrong. Whether you realize yet or not, you own Fast and Furious. It is your responsibility.

(“ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transport into Mexico.” This letter, vetted by both the senior ranks of ATF as well as the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, is a flat-out lie.)

The DOS hurriedly sent him on a “special mission” to Afghanistan when he was due to testify to Issa before Sept 30.

Kevin, if you're able to google yourself over there (that is, you are still breathing and have internet access), I'm doing what I can to keep you alive, buddy. Making that “stray bullet” a little less likely. Remember Ron Brown? Vince Foster? Etc?

And if your minders put you on a helicopter to move you to a “more secure location,” make sure you strap in. Real easy to fall out of those things, what with open troop doors and tight turns.

A generation ago, something this criminal by high level government officials would have brought down a presidency (oh wait, it did), and journalists would have been at the forefront of exposing it. Now most journalistic organizations (which are nothing more than political operatives of the DNC) run interference to keep the American people in the dark about what their elected officials and their appointees are doing ... breaking the law in order to create a false crisis so they can re-institute the assault weapons ban. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg and that there are much worse criminal acts by this administration that have yet to be uncovered.

Either Holder owns it all, himself, or he finally does tell the truth, admitting that Barry told him to do it and, as he serves at the pleasure of that Pres__ent, he had no other choice but to lose his job if he did not follow the orders given to him by Barry himself.

I can see the angle to get Holder to roll. However, this plays into Barry's hands to a certain degree. It affords Barry the ability to change the AG and wash his hands of the whole thing.

Barry should not be given the opportunity to be absolved of his own responsibility in all of this. I think Issa just made a a fatal mistake on that point and for the first time, I get the gut feeling that Barry has just been given the free pass he has been seeking all along.

I submit that this letter points directly at the reality that Issa fully intends to stop the GunWalker Accountability at the AG intentionally. Sadly, it is common sense in action to see that this could not have taken place without plenty more cabinet level involvement and cooperation. And the only way that cooperation was there remains being an order right from the top - Barry himself.

Holder Lied. There can be no legitimate doubt about that. But so too have others and they must be held to account for all that they did just as much as Holder must be.

I'll thank Issa for admitting Holder is cold busted, but I still submit that there is as much bad in this letter as there is good, if not more.

I suppose I could be wrong and this play by Issa could prove to make Holder fold and sing like a canary, thus seeing the whole thing implode, however, I sure ain't betting the farm on it.

I view this as an attempt to end it all with a little more than a Holder resignation - and that would be a miscarriage of justice to the nth degree.

Remember now, the DEPARTMENT of homeland security was (supposedly) created to stop stove-piping of information that create intelligence failures. IF this is to be hung on Holder himself, it is a stunning indictment that is the failure of the biggest expansion and reorganization of government in history.

So which is it, JANET? All the "tools" at your disposal and you still failed so miserably - and they all failed too? Holder holds the whole bag himself and you take the label of village idiot? Yeah, I suppose that is better than co-conspirator, huh?

Nope, this cannot "go away" just on Holder's shoulders. No friggin way.

Heh. I wonder how Media matters will try to spin THIS one. I had my doubts that Holder would be ousted. I'm beginning to change my mind on that. He needs to be wearing a striped suit. Next stop......Hillary, maybe? She never got into any trouble for Whitewatergate. It's time for her karma to come around next.

Yeah, Travis McGee, as if! They may not ignore it, but if they do not, it will only be used to paint Mr. Issa negatively.

My biggest question is STILL "Where is 'Law Enforcement?'" TWO Federal Law Enforcement officers have been murdered in cold blood. The FBI has hidden or destroyed one of the three guns found at the scene of one of those murders. And yet still NOT ONE PEEP out of this country's "Finest". Because those murders are the work of their Masters. The stench is overwhelming.

Cowards, such as obama, holder, and their hateful ilk, just met Doom.His name is Darrel Issa.

Of course Mr. Mike and Dave are who the unsung heroes are.God Bless you guys!You did Awesome!

Though if past is prolog, and revenge is a dish best served cold, Holder and the rest are in store for more pleasant surprises knowing you guys.What goes around comes around. Obama and all have worn their karma to the bone.

Woooo!Hoooo!Way to go Mr. Mike!The mouse that roared.Hobbits and Ewoks rule!You did it, you brought the bastards down.WOOOO! HOOOO!

Issa's letter is like fine wine, it only gets better with age.Each time I read it it's import becomes even more stunning.

If there was any doubt the expose and subsequent revelations of the high crimes, misdemeanors, and treason involved among the cast of crooks and tyrants could potentially bring obama down, it would take an act of God, or a despots desperate insanity, to stop things now.

The won has to be sweating bullets by the case.

Issa's letter changes the entire dynamic.It is a sea change. Obama/holders kabuki theater has been razed to the ground.

This letter is one step more than we got to on John F. Kerry and his lies/fraud and fake awards and citations in a combat zone.Once we got to the odd misfit info on the new improved Discharge and the DD-214 the shut down took place.People lost security clearances, lost jobs, some went off the info world for a long long time.

This is where the Republican leadership is going to be put to the test. The only way Obama/Holder/FBI boss/DEA boss/State Dept bosses/Hopeless Defense Dept all get off is for the Repuclican leadership to run interferance for them.

Some one put the fix in on John F. Kerry or he would not be sitting in our U.S. Senate.

This is where the Republican leadership is going to be put to the test.The only way Obama/Holder/FBI boss/DEA boss/State Dept bosses/Hopeless Defense Dept all get off is for the Repuclican leadership to run interferance for them.

Yes. This issue is key for me in my primary vote. Who will ACT come 2013? Hint: I've eliminated both Romney and Perry.

I like Objective Hillary as the next target in the campaign. With her implicated in Fast and Furious, they won't be able to dump Der Furher for her. Hillary can finally come out of the closet, divorce Bill and consecrate a loving civil union with her muslim brotherhood affiliated, traveling CoS / "body woman".

This is by no means going to stop with Holder. There are tons of other people involved, such as Hillary and Big Sis, and yes of course Barry Soetoro. Hillary was involved because her department should have issued written permission to send those guns into Mexico, and Big Sis was of course overseeing all of that as she is in charge of Customs and Immigration. I want Hillary to produce that piece of paper. Also let's start talking to some higher up Customs and Immigration officials and subpoena their weekly memos. We still got lots of work to do.

Outstanding! You have been working all along to try to stave off civil(!) war. This should have a profound effect. It will be very hard to justify massive new gun control measures with this exposure. That is much bigger than who falls due to this. They could have cut their losses early and just replaced Holder and others, and still been on target. No longer! Well done!

As long as there is proof that Obama said "working on it under the radar" referring to gun control, haul his butt into the hearing and ask him just what he meant by that phrase. Nixon and Clinton had to testify, Obama is no better.

ProudGulfWarVet: True, but if they ask him to appear and he refuses, the Republicans will eat him alive. It'll be like dumping a bucketful of hot bloody innards into the shark tank.

Every campaign ad from now until election day will ask 'Why wouldn't our President help get to the bottom of this?'. At that point the GOP could literally nominate a small fuzzy kitten and a trashy Harlequin romance novel and win.

WOW!!! Issa delivered a monumental BITCHSLAP with this letter. My guess is that Issa has A LOT more on Holder than he letting the media know. In fact, I'd say Issa has Holder's balls so firmly in his grip that he might not even need to squeeze. It's going to be soooo much fun to watch the coming details unfold! Once Holder is out of the way and powerless to protect the WH... SOETORO IS TOAST!

Yeah, that tactic has just worked out so well with Rezko and Blagojevich, hasn't it?

Holder is clearly dirty.

Time to press Janet and Hillary, oh, and Leon and Robert too.

With the so called gang of 12 supposedly tasked with super cuts, well, there is the opportunity to put serious changes on the table.

Hand over all the unredacted documents as the Congress and the PEOPLE are demanding -OR- face 100% budget cuts to each Executive Department, Bureau, Agency and other entity that refuses to comply fully.

The GunWalker Scandal demonstrates that the time for slow pitch softball games and tit for tat "strategies", which are so often used more for electioneering instead of justice, must come to an end. It is time for sliders and curve balls to be left alone and instead throw straightforward right over the middle of the plate fastballs.

Good riddance to Eric Holder. Worthless POS. The only administration more criminal than this one is the previous one, and there is really no contest: Bush and Cheney make these guys look like girl scouts when it comes to crimes, lies, and coverups.

What Does It Mean To Be A "Three Percenter"?

These four principles -- moral strength, physical readiness, no first use of force and no targeting of innocents -- are the hallmarks of the Three Percent ideal. Anyone who cannot accept them as a self-imposed discipline in the fight to restore the Founders' Republic should find something else to do and cease calling themselves a "Three Percenter."

No, I'm NOT Charlie. I am ARMED.

Edmund Burke reconsidered in the light of 20th Century funeral pyres.

"Remember: Evil exists because good men don't kill the government officials committing it." -- Kurt Hofmann.

The Nyberg Battle Flag of the Three Percent

This time we are ALL Davidians. This time, we are all Jews, Kulaks, "counter-revolutionists" and "enemies of the state." We are now a despised minority within a country no longer our own.BUT WE WILL NOT BE DESPISED.

My Blog List

Advice on child rearing from my son.

Everyone should grow up with simulated equipment from a heavy weapons platoon. It gives you a more well rounded education and an appreciation for the finer things in life. -- Sergeant Matthew Vanderboegh, United States Army.

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

"Smash the bloody mirror."

If you find yourself through the looking glass, where the verities of the world you knew and loved no longer apply, there is only one thing to do. Knock the Red Queen on her ass, turn around, and smash the bloody mirror. -- Mike Vanderboegh

From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

"Only cowards dare cringe."

The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

"We fight an enemy that never sleeps."

"As our enemies work bit by bit to deconstruct, we must work bit by bit to REconstruct. Be mindful where we should be. Set goals. We fight an enemy that never sleeps. We must learn to sleep less." -- Mike H. at What McAuliffe Said

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.